The Long Week Gets Longer

Got a call this morning from my mom that my great-uncle passed away last night. I'm sad he won't be around anymore, and I'm especially sad for my cousins who are missing him a ton, but I'm relieved and thankful to God it was a peaceful death and he wasn't hurting anymore.He was not related to me by blood (married to my late grandmother's sister), but he always was happy to see me and my family. He loved cigars, chocolate, and woodworking. I thought he wouldn't last long after my great-aunt passed away about six years ago, but he kept going. He did just about anything if he put his mind to it. Even with his lousy hearing and his eyesight failing. As I mentioned when I got the initial news he was failing (all the way at the end of the post), up until a couple years ago, he still made trips to Holland to visit the families of the town (towns?) he and his fellow soldiers helped liberate during the war. What an amazing life.I went with my parents to our one cousin's house (the daughter with whom he stayed these past few weeks he was slipping away), and two of my cousins who are my age (his grandkids) arrived shortly thereafter with their dad (his son), so we got to talk. It's hard seeing them upset, but we talked about the good times, and about our family. At one point they hauled out the genealogy map they've been working on, and things were a little clearer about my dad's side of the family (that he barely talks about). That's the weird positive side of family funerals: you get to see people you hardly ever see, or never before have met, and you learn more about your family, in a lot of different ways.It will be interesting to see the different things they do for the funeral of a veteran. Unfortunately, it'll be during the week and this is going to be fun figuring out when and how I'm going to take off from work. (Pity Younger Sister--she already had planned to take off from work and come up Thursday night. Mom prophetically had told her last weekend she might want to bring something to wear to a funeral. Oof.) Work has a not-quite-company-picnic planned and it sounds as if they want to bake us in the sun and run us ragged. I'm gonna need a shower before the viewing.So yeah, I've got a lot going on this week, with the not-quite-company-picnic, viewing, funeral, vigil Mass cantoring, Feast Mass cantoring (great timing!), niece's fourth birthday. . . and maybe trying to squeeze in the fingerprinting I need for a background check. I think I took the wrong week off!

Comments

I'm sorry for the sad news, Kate. I do hear you on the "catching up with family" part of funerals. Recently Ladybug and I were at a wedding, and folks were saying afterward that the next time everyone saw each other would probably be when someone died... not that anyone wants it that way, but there aren't any other big events on the horizon for a little while.